Our Adventure Continues
Day 7 | BearRun and Fallingwater
Our Next Stop: Our VRBO Rental
We begin Day 7 by waking up in our beautiful country villa…Pennsylvania-style. It is located in the lush woods of eastern Pennsylvania; isolated from just about everything convenient…it’s a good reason to have a car! Seriously, though, it’s just what we were hoping for. Plenty of privacy, plenty of bedrooms, a laundry room and a large kitchen!! Our friends Jay and Stephanie joined us yesterday afternoon about the time we arrived…thanks to GPS!
Home Sweet Home!
Our First Tour: Fallingwater!
IMHO, words and pictures really cannot substitute for a person actually being at Fallingwater. Walking through each room, listening to the rushing water of Bear Run Creek and taking in the views from inside each room into the secluded woods are experiences that really cannot be duplicated in any way other than the full docent-led tour like the one we had. A docent will give you inside information on how the Kaufmann family came to hire Frank Lloyd Wright, and lived for over two generations in the home before donating it to the Western Pennsylvania Conservancy. It has subsequently been elevated to the National Historic Landmark status in 1976 and in 2019, it was included along with seven other FLW designed-sites to the UNESCO World Heritage List. I could go on and on but if you go to the Fallingwater.org web site, you can discover many important historical facts about the house. When you’re finished with that adventure, come back here for images or ours. (I’ve tried to narrow down the list to 40 or 50…it was tough.)
A few images of Fallingwater…Imagine the swooshing sounds of rushing water from Bear Creek permeating your senses.
Our next stop for the day is a home designed by Wright for Bernadine and I.N. Hagan, in 1953 called Kentuk Knob. It was after visiting Fallingwater the Hagens hired FLW to design a home for them on 80 acres in the mountains above Bear Run not far from Fallingwater. After living in the house for 30 years, Lord Peter Palombo…remember him? purchased the house. (Hint: Day 3 at Edith Farnsworth’s Glass House.) After living in it for 10 years, they opened the home up to tours.
Kentuck Knob is one of FLW’s last Usonian homes which he “shook out of his sleeve”. Hmmm…He was also working on the Guggenheim Museum in New York City at the time, so it was true that he recycled the design from many similar projects but it remains a work of inspiration even if it is slightly used.
Kentuck Knob
Closing out the Day
It was a very full day of experiencing beautiful scenery, fascinating buildings and the next task was dinner at our home in the woods! Getting back to the advantages of renting a full house with a kitchen and gorgeous scenery, after some hunting and gathering by two members of our traveling party, in a nearby town, we finished the day with wine, and a large meal of pasta, salad, and dessert. One advantage of having several creative chefs in our group is that they can make even a cheap jar of spaghetti sauce taste pretty darn good.
After a full meal and recapping the day in conversation, we hit the hay early so we could get an early start to our next destination, a day trip to Pittsburgh!
Thanks for coming along!
We love reliving our trip through your blog, Greg!
Kentuck Knob was where I noticed the little red square by the front door. It’s Frank Lloyd Wright’s signature mark, for which the homeowner had to pay extra! Frank never sold himself short 😊